Using libraries and snippets

- In your long documents you probably have at leasta few common design elements that don't always appearat the same locations on the pageor maybe you need to share page elements with someone elseor you need to use a set of pageelements across multiple publications.If any of this sounds familiar,you should be using libraries or snippets.First let's talk about creating snippets and library items.To create a snippet, I can select a page item.And I can choose file, export,and format, I'll choose snippet.

I'll put it on the desktop, and I'll give it a name.I'll just call this feature box left, and click saveor I can select an item and drag and drop it to my desktop.And for that, since I'm using the application frame,I have to drag InDesign out of the wayso I can actually see my desktop.And I'll drag it over and drop it in place.And when it appears on the desktop,it's now an InDesign snippet, and it's namedwith this sort of meaningless file name.But I can quickly change that.I'll just call this feature boxright and switch back to InDesign.

Now, to create library items, you firstneed a library to put them into.So to create a library, I'll choose file,new, library, I'll put this on the desktop,and I'll call it Cheese Library.And now I can place items into this library.So with this group on the left selected,I'll hold option or alt and clickon the new library item button.This brings up the dialogue box where I can name it,again, I'll call it feature box left.And I can select an object type.

I'll just leave it at text, and I can add a description.I'll call this sidebar featurefor left pages, and click okay.I can also drag an item into a libraryand then double-click it to edit the information,call it feature box right, the object type is text,and the description, sidebar featurefor right pages, and click okay.And the benefit of descriptionsis that you can search on them.So if I had a huge library with all kinds of items,I could find this element quicklyby clicking on the search buttonand typing in some words that were in the description.

So I'll choose description containsand say right, and click okay.And notice that even though I have two itemsin this library, I now see only one,just the one that matched the search that I just did.I can show all the items in the libraryby right-clicking in it and choosing show all.This can be helpful if it seems likesome library items are missing.You might just be viewing a subset of the items.You can update library items easily.So if the design of something changes,like say the fill of this box on the left-hand sideneeds to be made darker to match the one on the right,I can select the frame, I'll use the control panelto darken the fill to 50 percent, select the group,and then right-click on the itemin the library and choose update library item.

And you can see the fill changed inside the library.You can even add guides as library items and snippets.You can't drag guides into librariesor onto your desktop to make a snippet.But you can add them to librariesby selecting a guide like this one right hereand then clicking on the new library item button.I'll double-click it, and we'll just call it feature guide.To export a guide as a snippet, with it selectedI'll just press command or control E,save it to the desktop, again choose format,InDesign snippet, and we'll give it a name,call it feature guide, and click save.

Now, one thing to note is that you can't save guidesand page objects into the same snippetor library item because it's impossibleto select both things at the same time.To place snippets in library items,you can just drag and drop them into the layout.So I'll delete the originals here,and I can drag this library item into the layoutor if I delete it, I can place itjust by right-clicking on it and choosing place item.And when I place it, it goes tothe position of the original item.

To place a snippet, I'll press command or control Dto get the place dialogue box, navigate to the desktop,select feature box right, and click open.Now, you have the option to place snippetsat the same location as the original or at your cursor.And the default for this preferenceis set in your file handling preferences.Right now my preferences are set to goto the cursor location, so if I click,this box will go exactly where my cursor is.But I can undo and hold option or alt and click,and now the box goes to the position of the original.

You should also know that snippets and library itemswill retain their layer associations if you've selectedpaste remembers layers in the layers panel.So let's go over to the layers panel and check that out.Layers panel menu, paste remembers layers, and it'sselected, I can tell by this little check mark here.So my snippets and library items for these feature boxeshave all gone on to the features layer.If paste remembers layers was turned off,an imported snippet or library item would goto whichever layer was targeted in the layers panel.

Another cool use for snippets and library itemsis as repositories of document resourcesyou might want to reuse in the future.So what do I mean by document resources?Well, things like paragraph styles,character styles, table and cell styles, object styles,swatches, strokes, layers, hyperlinks, even XML tags,all of those things can be savedin snippets and library items.And when you place a snippet or a library iteminto a document, all the resources come along with it.

So let's see how that works, I'll createa brand new document, just press commandor control N and accept the default.And right now this document has just about nothing in it,so it's got just the default layer one,no paragraph styles other than basic paragraph,no character styles, and so on, so let's add some resources.I'll press command or control D.I'll go into the exercise files,go into the folder for this movie,and select this snippet BaseStyles.idms.

I'll click open, and you can see I havea bunch of resources right here at my cursor.Even though I haven't clicked yet,all the resources for these page itemshave now been added to my panelsso you can see I now have a text layer and an art layer,and I have a whole bunch of paragraph stylesand a character style and so on.And since I don't really want these page itemsplaced into this document, I just wanted those resources,I can press the escape key and get rid of the page items,and I still keep all the resources.

So I still have all those paragraph styles.So as we've seen in this movie,both snippets and libraries can be really usefulin long document workflows, both for storingand reusing page objects as well as for giving youa way to instantly inject things likestyles, swatches, and layers into your documents.

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Author

Released

11/19/2014

Creating Long Documents with InDesign shows designers how to plan, create, and output book-length documents using InDesign CC features and third-party plugins. Publishing veteran Mike Rankin focuses on long-document elements such as page and chapter numbering, tables of contents, cross-references, and indexes. The course also provides strategies and best practices for document construction, from creating master pages and applying consistent formatting with styles, to placing text and images and outputting to both print and interactive PDF.